Let’s not put up with extremism, says Vikram Seth

After a controversy broke out over the withdrawal of American Indologist Wendy Doniger’s book The Hindus: An Alternative History, novelist Vikram Seth has backed her “scholarly” work and cautioned against yielding to extremism of any kind.

“The idiotic group, by the name of Shiksha Bachao Andolan, is saying this is only one battle. It wants to win a war. We must not put up with extremism of any kind. We are one country, and we must not allow that to happen. We are free-minded. We must not allow ourselves to be crushed,” Mr. Seth said at a session of the Patna Literature Festival, which opened on Friday.

“It is an analytical book by one of the great scholars of Hinduism.” The opposition to the book “because of the fact that she is a foreigner is ridiculous.” “Translations of the Ashoka Pillars were not done by us. We should take knowledge from wherever it comes. We have no right to consider ourselves superior by virtue of where we are born,” Mr. Seth said.

“Wendy is a great Sanskrit scholar. She wrote a very well-researched book. And one of the aspects of the book was that in old Hindu culture, men and women enjoyed sex and sexuality. She has proved it through [research]. And what do Mr. Batra [Dinanth Batra, one of the petitioners in the case] and others say? That this is against the idea of ‘Bhartiya nari’ [Indian woman] and our culture. What nonsense! Not only this book, but any other book, that talks about our religion, culture and country in a scholarly manner [should be welcomed]. Indian culture is not about superiority and inferiority,” he said.

So, according to Vikram Seth, all of India must put go on tolerating all the poorly researched, intellectually dishonest trash dished out by the blatantly extremist views of the Western Left-Liberal clique, and its continuous efforts to tamper with the laws in India so that they are in line with the latest fad in Europe or North America.

The Left-Liberal of the 21st century, including Mr. Seth, is the most highly evolved, supremely rational human being with all knowledge of all things. Anyone who disagrees is, of-course, a Right-wing extremist.

Very convenient and Very liberal, Mr. Seth. I am sure this will ensure that you remain a favorite speaker on the global loony Left-Liberal circuit. Happy Jet-Setting!

from:
Venkatesh R.

Posted on: Feb 15, 2014 at 16:46 IST

Agreeing wholeheartedly with Vikram Seth, I would add that EVEN if we disagreed with Wendy Doniger, we must have respected her freedom of expression. Coercing the publishers to withdraw the book was a retrograde step.

from:
Sundararajan S. Gopalan

Posted on: Feb 15, 2014 at 14:41 IST

I am in full agreement with the views of Vikram Seth. He is absolutely right in saying, "We should take knowledge from wherever it comes." There is a verse in the Rig Veda to that effect "LET NOBLE THOUGHTS COME TO US FROM EVERY SIDE." The Catholicity spirit is a very basic tenet of Hindu culture and and it is this liberal outlook that has ensured its survival through the ages when other civilisations have died out. Differences of opinion and criticisms must always be encouraged. As Vivekananda said: "IT IS BY THE CLASH OF THOUGHTS THAT NEW THOUGHTS ARISE" and this is the only way to progress in any sphere of activity. If an idea is wrong it should be countered by a right idea, not by banning it from being published. We learn from criticism if it is justified. As they say, a wise man is one who builds his foundation with the bricks that others throw at him. It is very saddening that some fanatical Hindus have started emulating the Talibans.

from:
DURAI

Posted on: Feb 15, 2014 at 11:04 IST

Withdrawal of the book is tragic because one thing that Hinduism can take pride in is that "Nastiks" or non-believers are also an official part of Hinduism. The root of the problem lies in the long period of colonialism when (1) rulers understood the culture of the ruled through willful ignorance (2) implemented the propagation of their contempt via implementation of sophisticated informational techniques. Yet Indians must recognize that that happened a long time ago and even then there were foreigners who understood, respected and supported our cultures. Indians on whole have done much better than other colonized countries who survived largely by abandoning their identity or are still engaged in an internal physical & moral battle. But we Indians are capable of doing much better. But major political parties have also failed India by consistently failing to tackle these issues head on and by not amending many of these "old" outdated laws.